I would like to try a preferment in making my Lehmann NY Style pizza. Could I use flour, water, and IDY to make a preferment that can be incorporated into my Lehmann recipe and achieve a better crust flavor? I think I would like to try a poolish that can be refrigerated overnight and then be incorporated into my final dough mixture the next day. I want to try a 24 hour fermentation after incorporating the preferment.I did purchase cultures from Sourdough.com, but am not sure if this is the way I want to proceed until I have tried other preferments. I have had this cultures for about 5 months, but never started them. I would like to experiment on the easiest method first to see the results would be. If this method doesnít produce better crust flavor, then I can try another kind of preferment and proceed from there. I am using KASL flour, Morton Kosher Salt, filtered water, Fillippo Bero olive oil, and Saf-red IDY. I would like to use 5 dough balls for this test. This is the formula I am using now for my Lehmann NY Style dough. I also have King Arthur unbleached bread flour that I could use to make the preferment.

Mix everything just until the gluten begins to form and then let rise at room temp for about 4 hours. Scale the dough into 5 balls and refridgerate for 24-48 hours. Allow dough to warm to room temp before baking.

You may also want to try increasing the hydration to around 65%. To do this sub 744 grams of water instead of the 638 grams for a total of 1144 grams. A Tbls of vinegar will give your dough a nice twang.

Norma,Funny you should ask this question. I am in the same stage. I received my two Italian starters last week. I am a novice and I was afraid to start them without practice. I decided two kill two birds with one stone, so I stopped at a local homebrew shop and picked up a 10 gram package of Coopers Ale yeast for $1.65. I decided two mix 1 gram of yeast with a a cup of flour and an equal amount of water in grams and freeze the rest. I always wanted two try beer yeast. I started this on Monday and the starter is thriving. This yeast appears to be slow and prefers warm temperatures so I add about 150 grams of flour and 150 grams of water each day. I feed it after it peaks and drops an inch or so, it works out to be about 24 hours. I made three balls on the 23rd and tried one pizza on the 24th. I used 8% starter and no additional yeast. The gluten development was incredible. I made a square pie about 15 x 14 with 600 grams. I cooked it on a fibrament for 8 minutes at 500 degrees. The crust rose about 1/2 an inch and the the center, with sauce and a little Pecorino, rose about the thickness of a brown paper bag. It was also very crisp and did not flop. I found the crust taste very interesting. It was exactly like a Chef-Boyardee. Maybe those kits use beer yeast. I think I will add additional bakers yeast to my next batch after I try the other two balls this weekend. The starter was getting two big for the container on the 23rd so I divided it and fed both. I have just used the second one too add 660 grams to a Ciabatta recipe that I just mixed. I will post this first then post the Pizza recipe. I found that not only the taste is enhanced, but the gluten development is enhanced as well.

Villa Roma,Thank you for the figuring this out for me and giving detailed instructions. Since my KASL doesnít have an absorption rate of 65%.do you think this would be okay to use a higher hydration to start my test with? I am willing to try this if you think it will work out okay. If you donít mind telling me about your experiences with using a preferment. I would appreciate you telling me about what kind of results you have achieved with a preferment in achieving better crust flavor.My digital scales only weighs in ounces, pounds and kg. I am not familiar with kg and grams. Sorry to be asking all these questions, but in time I will learn. Thank you for taking the time to answer my post. Norma

Bob1,Great to hear we are in the same stage of trying to find what is the best thing to use. It will be interesting to see what your results are with the what adding the bakers yeast. Please post pictures so I can see what kind of results you are getting with your experiments.Thanks,Norma

Norma, I am using a 50/50 with KASL and it is working. Most people say not to use KASL and try it with a lower protein unbleched flour. You will understand why when you try to pour it out of the container. I actually have to cut it with a knife because of the gluten development. It does not concern me however, because I am using such a small amount. I am also very carefull to mix the feeding gently and not stir hard.

Bob1,Thank you for telling me what ratio you are using and the instructions. What hydration are you using? If you want to post pictures, you can either post under here or do your own post so the forum sees how your are progressing.Thanks for your help,Norma

Villa Roma,Thank you for the figuring this out for me and giving detailed instructions. Since my KASL doesnít have an absorption rate of 65%.do you think this would be okay to use a higher hydration to start my test with? I am willing to try this if you think it will work out okay. If you donít mind telling me about your experiences with using a preferment. I would appreciate you telling me about what kind of results you have achieved with a preferment in achieving better crust flavor.My digital scales only weighs in ounces, pounds and kg. I am not familiar with kg and grams. Sorry to be asking all these questions, but in time I will learn. Thank you for taking the time to answer my post. Norma

Thanks,Norma

I've been using Gold Medal Better for Bread flour with a 75% hydration level and had great results. http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,9878.0.html KASL should have no problem handling 65%. You can pick up an Escali scale that measures grams for about $25 on Amazon or do the conversion. 1 oz is 28.35 grams.

Villa Roma,Thanks for the conversion from ounces to grams. I received some money for a Christmas present, so probably my next piece of equipment to buy will be a digital scale for home use.I appreciate all the information you gave me.Norma

Norma, Here is my first attempt to post pics. I used the starter today to make three loaves of Chiabatta. I thought I would also use 400 g on a tomato pie in a 14" cutter pan. The bread and pie were very tasty. I found that the tomato pie raised well and the crumb to be extremely light and airy. Sorry the picture quality is not that good, but I think you can make out that the crumb has large bubbles. The result of this experiment worked very well for taste and structure using a dough that was mixed at 9:00 AM and baked at noon. It had much more flavor than a 6 day cold ferment with the same KASL. I would think that you could try this method at your stand with good results. I will post the recipe later.

Norma, Here is the formula for todays work based on the above pictures. I wanted to get rid of an extra container of the 50/50 ferment. The Cooper ferment yeast I am using is very slow and easy to feed at room temp, so I will probably have it on hand for quite a while. I would assume that in a week or two It will get even more flavor when the bacteria starts to populate. At that point it will be more sour, and I may not be able to get away with using so much preferment. Time will tell. I did not work with the dough much. I only folded it about ten times. It was mixed in a Electrolux DLX. I mixed 3/4 of the flour, the yeast, and all the water for a minute or two and then let it autolyse for 20 minutes. I then mixed it for 5 minutes and then added the preferment, then I mixed in the last of the flour with the salt. The total ball was kneeded for about 5 minutes after it all came together. I cooked the bread at 480 deg for 35 minutes (205 deg internal). I also had a water pan in the oven and the crust came out very crisp. The Pizza was baked at 475 for about ten minutes. It had 6 in 1 with oil, spice, sugar, and a bit of Pecorino.

Bob1,Congratulations on your first posts of pictures. To be able to see what recipes or pizzas actually look like is really a big help. Your crumb structure looks nice and airy. To be able to make a dough at 9am and to use it to make a pizza at 12pm is eye opening to me. I want to read more about preferments and then decide by next week, what I want to try first. Seems I have a lot to learn. Lol Good to hear you are using KASL, also, so that will give me more to think about.What I find really interesting is your saying it had more flavor than a 6 day cold fermentation.Thank you for giving me the formula you used.Did your crust have a sourdough flavor, since you said you might use less preferment in future experiments? Am I correct in saying you did use an autolyse of 20 minutes? Another question I would like to ask is do you always put a pan of water in you oven to make the crust crisp?Your bread looks very tasty, also. I just made some Kimmelweck rolls today. What an adventure. Will post the results under the person that directed me to the Kimmelweck recipe.Thanks for giving all this detailed information.Norma

Norma,I only used the pan of water to steam the bread loaves. I never use water for pizza. Keep in mind that I started this to get used to working with a sourdough starter. For the cost of a cup of flour and the same weight in water it is very inexpensive. I think the taste develops quicker with a warm ferment and is there to be utilized. I also feel that if you need to make extra pies the next day you should be able to add extra flour and water and still maintain the flavor on a 24 hour ferment period. The batch I used today the 26th was about 330 grams on the 25th. I then fed it with 165 grams of flour and 165 grams of water at 5pm on the 25th. This gave me the 660 gram poolish to bake today. I believe the taste has not become sour yet because the mixture is only 5 days running. Keep in mind that the preferment is made with Australian Beer yeast that prefers a warm ferment, and the final dough had SAF IDY added. Also keep in mind that the bacteria that gives taste to a starter usually takes a couple of weeks to develop. I commented on using less preferment in the future because the taste may become more intense as the starter ages and reaches it's balance between yeast and bacteria.

I made three dough balls a few days ago with only 8% of the same starter and no extra yeast. I used one ball after a 24 cold ferment and it had good taste but the ball was the same size as when I first put it in the fridge, but it did double before I baked it. The remaining two balls have now doubled in the fridge. I will probably bake them tomorrow.

Regarding the autolyse, I like to mix 75% of the flour with all the water and let it sit for 20 minutes. I then try to develop the gluten in that wet dough before adding the rest. It seems to work for me because the tomato pie was very light and digestable. In fact I was really impressed by the gluten development in the whole batch today. Even though the dough was such a high hydration it was not that sticky and hard to work with. In the past I have also tried the other side of the spectrum, and have just brought the dough together and let the gluten develop in the fridge. It is all a work in progress.

Bob,It is very interesting on how you are progressing with using starters and the knowlege you have obtained in experimenting. When you are expermenting at home, you don't have to have a certain start and finish time most of the time. You have become very proficent in handling your starter. I never have used any kind of starter, so learning will be a stage by stage process for me. I have decided this is something I wanted to try to see if I can get a better crust flavor. Since I am in a commercial enviorment, putting it to a weekly operation is another story. Only time will tell if this works out for me. I only want to start with one variable at a time and see what differences can be seen in the crust flavor. If I jump into too many variables at a time I won't be able to see what the changes are that can be achieved. Thank you for telling me why you used the water and going into detail about using your starter. Maybe what I might be looking for is a sponge. Will have to read more about what a sponge is. Thanks,Norma

I think it would be a good idea to first determine what you are hoping to achieve in using a preferment. Is it for personal use at home, or for your limited business situation? If it is for your business, I think I would start simply and use something like an IDY-based preferment. It could be some version of the Lehmann NY style dough formulation with which you have already had considerable experience, or some other unrelated version such as proposed by Villa Roma. If you are thinking of reformatting the Lehmann dough formulation, there are endless preferment versions that one can try, from poolish versions, sponge versions, biga versions, old dough versions, etc. However, you have to have at least some basic understanding of the different types of preferments and their underlying biochemistry and use, and the math for doing reformatting can be quite complicated for some people, especially since the forum does not have any tools that can be used to do all the calculations. Each reformatting has to be done with pencil and paper and a desk calculator. Even if you can master the math part, there would be no guarantee that you will get the results you are looking for.

Peter,This would be to try at my market stand to try and achieve a better crust flavor. Some time in the future, I would like to also try this at home. I will be reading and learning more about a preferment using IDY. Since I am not good at math, by next week maybe I will be able to decide what I want to do. I might use what Villa Roma has proposed with my regular hydration since I am not used to handling a higher hydration dough.Thanks,Norma

I am curious about learning more about the math you are discussing. Is it explained on PMQ? I would like to research it further on all the preferments. I chose a 50/50 base preferment so I had a lot of activity to develop flavor. I decided to use the beer yeast so I would have something different to work with as I practiced maintaining a sour dough. I currently use Fleishmans cake & IDY, Red Star ADY, and SAF IDY. I think next month I will activate another warm preferment with the Fleishmans cake to study it's behavior. My goal on this project is to feed the starter every 24 hours so I can zero in on a consistant activity at a finished dough hook temp, and then adjust the extra yeast as required. The batch I made yesterday was for bread, but I tried a tomato pie also. The three dough balls that I made previous to this are strictly ferment with no additional yeast. The next batch will have a little conventional yeast added to it. I am only experimenting with 5 to 8 percent starter on the cold ferments. It will be interesting to see what the changes will be as the starter develops. I will definitely try to keep this beer starter going because it is great for emergency doughs also. It appears that I can up the percentage to add flavor and developed gluten on short notice.

Norma,I would suggest trying it at home in order to get used to working with, and caring for a starter. This project is giving me confidence, and teaching me how to work with them. It has helped a lot with the mystery and fear of messing up. The great thing is that it will only cost you pennies to try it. With your experience and Peter's direction I am sure you would be able to incorporate it, or some variation, into your stand someday. At least this would be a good way to get your feet wet.

Preferments are classically and traditionally creations of the bread making world, not the pizzza world, and based on using commercial yeast. Over time, these preferments, as well as other bread making principles, have been adopted for use in making pizza dough. The type of math I was referring to is embodied in the following articles by Didier Rosada: http://web.archive.org/web/20050116064312/www.cafemeetingplace.com/archives/food3_apr2004.htm and http://web.archive.org/web/20050829015510/www.cafemeetingplace.com/archives/food4_dec2004.htm. As you will see from these articles, there are quantitative aspects to preferments (e.g., how much to use and the composition and hydration of the preferments), a time component (e.g., the duration of the prefermentation period), and a temperature component (e.g., the temperature of prefermentation, which might be room temperature, a refrigerator/cooler temperature or a combination of both). With a basic understanding of preferments and their related biochemistry, a standard dough recipe, such as the basic Lehmann dough recipe that Norma has been using, can be transformed to a poolish format, a sponge format, a biga format, or an old dough/chef/pate fermente format. That is where the math aspect comes into play. Alternatively, and sometimes preferably, it may be better to use someone else's proven preferment dough recipe. Villa Roma's recommended formulation may be one such proven dough formulation.

It is possible to use natural preferments that have compositions and consistencies (hydrations) that replicate commercially-leavened preferments, but they cannot be merely substituted for commercially-leavened preferments because they have different profiles in terms of activity level, quantity, and other performance aspects. In my opinion, based on my experience having done both, it is easier to convert a dough recipe to a commercial-leavened preferment format than to a "natural preferment" format. It is also important to keep in mind that not all preferments result in the ideal or perfect pizza dough/crust. I have used preferments that yielded baguette-like tasting crusts that, while quite nice for a bread, was not what I was looking for in pizza crusts. Also, crust coloration can become a problem and require reformulation and possibly the use of diastatic malts to help correct the deficiency.

I really want to start from just finding out what the best starting place would be for me in trying a preferment and incorporating it into my dough. I am not in a hurry and can try many different ideas of other members and people that have posted in the past. I really donít know if I ever will incorporate this in my weekly dough. I have my regular Lehmann dough recipe that I can make weekly. As for working with and caring for a starter here at home that is something I might do in the future. I donít really have all the equipment to go from starting and caring for a starter and then actually making the pizza here at home. I like to experiment with recipes here at home, but I my oven, no baking stone, no digital scale and many other things keep me from trying this at home for now. If you want to post your questions about your using starters you could post under Starters/Sponges and probably get some information from other forum users that have tried all these things in the past. You are already much more advanced in starters than I am. As for PMQ think tank, I donít think many members there are using preferments, although I am not sure.Thanks for sharing your information.

Thanks Peter for explaining all this. I just went to post and saw you had already posted.

As for PMQ think tank, I donít think many members there are using preferments, although I am not sure.

Norma,

It is rare to find discussion on preferments at the PMQTT. Tom Lehmann sometimes tries to introduce PMQTT members to basic preferments but there is usually no response to his posts on the subject. Our members are light years more advanced on the topic. I think it is because we are home pizza makers by and large and don't have to contend with the many challenges in adapting preferment principles to commercial operations where failure can exact a high price, especially for operators who don't really understand the complexities of preferments.

In the last few hours I went to PMQTT and typed in the search: Increasing the flavor of dough. If you go down to the one that reads about increasing the flavor of dough and you will see pizzanerd and there are 162 replies and 11 pages. I tried to copy the link so if anyone is interested they also could read this whole post and threads, but when I tried to copy and paste on word, it doesn't come up.I am finding this to be good reading, as it discusses different ways to use a preferment. I haven't read all of it, but will continue to read. It is also interesting they tell you to look at pizzamaking.com for more information. Norma

Dom DeMarco of DiFara's in Brooklyn uses a mix of 00 and high-gluten flours. He once told me that he used 25% 00 flour and 75% high-gluten flour (he tends to favor the All Trumps), both by volume. He bakes the pizzas in a Bakers Pride deck oven.by pizzanerd

Peter,I took a quick glance at the two links. To be honest I get a little confused on semantics sometimes. Is the starter that I created with around 1 cup of KASL, equal grams of water, & 1 gram of beer yeast a poolish or a sourdough. Technically it is commercial yeast but I assume it starts out as a poolish and will develop into a sour dough as it increases in bacteria growth. I started this concoction based on things that Marco has written. I may have misunderstood what he wrote, but it seems that what I have, is more of the old mother dough method that the old country used to use. I thought it would be good because at room temp it makes calculating finished dough temp easy. I based my first three dough balls on 8% of the flour weight. According to Marco I should have used 5% of the water weight which would have lowered the criscito to about half. On another day I then did as he mentioned by adding much more crisito to the bread batch, as Italian bread bakers do. I used my second dough ball today from the first batch of three using 8% flour weight and it made a nice tomato pie. I will attach pics and the formula tomorrow. The dough raised much better on the second pie. I will insert Marco's post below this one. After rereading Marco's post and considering the small amount of criscito I may not add any additional yeast and use a warm ferment instead of a cold one. Peter, please let me know if I am interpreting Marco correctly.

Hi Pftyalor

Yes I am the same pizza from egullet ;-), well spotted!

Anyway, I 'll try to explain again as I did yesterday, and hope that this time the post doesn't get lost...

First of all some terminology, which will help understand each other:

In Naples when we speak about dough, we relate all the ingredient against the water, as it is the first ingredient that goes into the mixer or the the mixing bowl.

Secondly, we need to distinguish between the mixing method (direct vs indirect) and levening agents (Commercial yeast vs Natural yeast or "CRISCETO" as it is known in Naples).

Poolish, Biga, Pan at l'ancienne, etc, are all indirect mixing method. They consist of premixing a large quantity of flour, water and fermenting agent, which will the be part of the final dough. This preferment, it is responsible of much of the flavour of the final dough, but also, because of some reaction, of a certain crispiness in the final baked product. Under this aspect we should look at the action of enzymes not only for the resulting flavour (as it is only mention in american baking bibliography), but also at the resulting weakening of the gluten and improve digestibility.

When we talk about Starter, natural leaven, wild yeast, we are talking about a microflora of wild yeast and bacteria which strive in a mix of flour and water. A piece of this mix, can be used only as starter for the next dough when added in minimum ammount or as a preferment, adding also the test of the acidified mix, when added in large ammount.

The old dough method, is a way of using a piece of acidified dough from the previous batch (thus including salt and usually made with a natural wild yeast starter otherwise doesn't have leavening power). When using a culture strter from another regions, like the Italians one, I strongly reccomend not to use the old dough method, but instead the Mother dough method.In the mother dough method, a piece of dough made with only water and flour plus the culture starter, is refreshed with a 50% addittin of water and flour, and after is left to ferment for a minimum time of 3-6 hours, a piece is cut off (the dauther) and used as fermenting agent or in large quantity as preferment. This way, thanks to the strong innoculating of the original mother dough into the refreshment, there is a better chance to avoid contaminations.

Having clarified the above, I can now tell you that the main difference in Naples between Pizza dough and Bread dough made both with CRISCETO (WILD YEAST STARTER) is in the ammount of CRISCITO used.In the pizza dough it has to be minimum, in percentage that vary from 1 to 5% of the water's weight, and it is only needed as fermenting agent, assuring a slow and appropriate fermentation.When in the previous post, I was talking about the wrong recipe in the booklet, it was because it was developed following the "disciplinare" guideline adapting it from the recipe using commercial yeast. The recipe calls therefore for a large ammount of starter to assure an 8 hrs rise. That is wrong for what I said above and in the previous post.

Now, talking about Una Pizza, I would like to start saying that I admire Mr Mangieri for the passion and effort he is putting in his project. However I have to say that he is a bit still away from the right ancient method of making a neapolitan dough with a natural leavening.

Whilst he is using indeed a starter for his dough, and this is indeed an ancient method, the process he is using is not right, as it follow some breads technique. I don't like to disclose his methos, as he was kind enough to show it and explain it to me, and on the other hand I also made an effort to explain where it was wrong. It could also be that since my visit in November he has taken my suggestion on board, and have change something in better. However there was a reason for my comment on eGullet.

Pasing on the Caputo flour, I need to know which one are you using. There are several Blue bags made by Caputo, of which one has a pizza picture on it and the label states: "PIZZERIA". Is it this one that you are talking about?

Let me know, and if anybody has any further questions, please do not hesitate to ask.